Joseph S. Nye Jr. writes a monthly column for the Project Syndicate news series, where he provides a unique perspective on the dynamics and principles shaping global affairs today. Nye is Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and author, most recently, of The Powers to Lead.
How Obama Leads
By Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
CAMBRIDGE – Two years ago, Barack Obama was a first-term senator from a mid-western state who had declared his interest in running for the presidency. Many people were skeptical that an African-American with a strange name and little national experience could win. But as his campaign unfolded, he demonstrated that he possessed the powers to lead – both soft and hard.
Soft power is the ability to attract others, and the three key soft-power skills are emotional intelligence, vision, and communications. In addition, a successful leader needs the hard-power skills of organizational and Machiavellian political capacity. Equally important is the contextual intelligence that allows a leader to vary the mix of these skills in different situations to produce the successful combinations that I call “smart power.”